Simpson Taking On Rostenkowski Again

Former Ald. Dick Simpson has been running against U.S. Rep. Daniel Rostenkowski for more than two years. It only seems longer.

But controversy and scandal have dogged Rostenkowski since his memorable 1989 run-in with senior citizens, and the incumbent has spent three and a half decades in Congress.

It is Rostenkowski's increasing legal problems and Congress' diminished stature with voters that will finally lead to change in the Northwest Side 5th Congressional District, Simpson predicted Tuesday.

"My campaign is not just to weed out one corrupt congressman. It is a campaign to change Congress," Simpson said in a formal declaration of his Democratic primary challenge to Rostenkowski.

Simpson's effort to unseat Rostenkowski, the House Ways and Means Committee chairman, will be his second in as many years. He lost to Rostenkowski with 43 percent of the vote in the March 1992 primary election.

The former City Council independent, an associate professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago, hasn't stopped campaigning against Rostenkowski since then.

Simpson, 52, predicted that a federal grand jury probe in Washington into Rostenkowski's alleged involvement in the House Post Office scandal and his personal-political financial dealings will result in the 65-year-old congressman's indictment.

A spokesman for Rostenkowski declined to comment on Simpson's candidacy or on Rostenkowski's re-election plans.

Hedging against the possibility that the incumbent might not be his opponent after all, Simpson said his campaign will not be as much a referendum on Rostenkowski, as it was in 1992, as it will be on 5th District pocketbook issues and reforming Congress.

"It is a referendum this time on our future," Simpson said during a news conference at the Bismarck Hotel.

Simpson released his income tax returns and a net worth statement, demanding that Rostenkowski and any other candidate do the same. He called on all candidates to participate in a series of debates.

The cornerstone of Simpson's congressional reform initiative calls for term limits of 12 years, public financing of campaigns for Congress and mandatory participation by members in six town hall meetings a year.